The Green Infrastructure Foundation offers a digital training course titled Introduction to Green Infrastructure: Principles, Applications, and Policies.
This course, developed in partnership with Green Roofs for Healthy Cities, the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, and the Ontario Parks Association, is now available on-demand through the Living Architecture Academy, which is Green Roofs for Healthy Cities’ digital learning platform.
Green infrastructure means natural and human-made elements that provide ecological and hydrological functions and processes. Green infrastructure can include components such as natural heritage features and systems, parklands, stormwater management systems, street trees, urban forests, natural channels, permeable surfaces, and green roofs.
Green infrastructure use is widespread across the US and Europe, but capacity in Canada to use, create policy for, incentivize, and apply green infrastructure is limited. This course is designed to build this capacity in the public and private sector by introducing green infrastructure through its types, benefits, principles, applications, and successful policies.
This course does not focus on large natural areas, but rather neighbourhood and site-level stormwater management technologies and other living systems like trees, green roofs, and bioswales. This is because this is typically the level on which public and private stakeholders make decisions and create policy for.
Introduction to Green Infrastructure serves as a companion course to the Green Infrastructure Foundation’s other course, Valuing the Benefits of Green Infrastructure: Principles and Methods, which explores valuing the many benefits green infrastructure assets can provide on a site and neighborhood scale, already available on the Living Architecture Academy.
These two courses are both available online, and on-demand, and seek to help address challenges and increase the use of green infrastructure to unlock its many benefits, shaping healthier and more resilient communities.
Green infrastructure means natural and human-made elements that provide ecological and hydrological functions and processes. Green infrastructure can include components such as natural heritage features and systems, parklands, stormwater management systems, street trees, urban forests, natural channels, permeable surfaces, and green roofs. Green infrastructure use is widespread across the US and Europe, but capacity in Canada to use, create policy for, incentivize, and apply green infrastructure is limited. This course is designed to build this capacity in the public and private sector by introducing green infrastructure through its types, benefits, principles, applications, and successful policies.
Learning Objectives:
- Understand the range of possible benefits using green infrastructure;
- Learn the principles behind incorporating green infrastructure into community building projects;
- Understand the various elements and functions of green infrastructure;
- Understand the barriers to green infrastructure implementation;
- Understand the planning process designed to develop a comprehensive green infrastructure planning and implementation strategy; and
- Learn about successful policies implemented in other jurisdictions.
Scope of Course
The course does not focus on large natural areas, but rather neighbourhood and site-level stormwater management technologies and other living systems like trees, green roofs, and bioswales. This is because this is typically the level on which public and private stakeholders make decisions and create policy for.
Photo of green infrastructure in a new mixed-use, transit-oriented redevelopment at the Rhode Island Metro station in Washington DC is by Storm Cunningham (2019).